Man arrested for “kid killing” ESPN.com comment

A Los Angeles man who posted online comments on ESPN's website said he was watching kids, and wouldn't mind killing them.

Even if that was some sort of an epic failure joke, what is wrong with society today? The man, whose name has not been released, is being held Tuesday on $2 million bail after he was arrested for investigation of making terrorist threats, authorities said. Several guns were also found at the man's home on Monday.

Threatening posts were made in a reader response section to an online ESPN story on Thursday about new Nike sneakers named after LeBron James that cost $270 a pair, ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys said Tuesday. Some of the nearly 3,000 reader comments on the story talked about children possibly getting killed over the sneakers because of how expensive they are.

"What he was posting had nothing to do with sports," Soltys said. "We closely monitor the message boards and anytime we get a threat, we're alerting law enforcement officials."

An employee at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., notified local police the same day and they linked the posting to the man's home in Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County. Sheriff's investigators said they were contacted Sunday and began surveillance on the man's home until a search warrant was obtained.

The online post on ESPN said that a shooting would be like the one in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed and 58 were injured in July, authorities said.

Really? And I mean, really?!? How dumb do you have to be to even "joke" about something like that? I can't think of a single reason whereas commenting as such would be acceptable in any manner, whatsoever. In this day and age of society, especially in America, anyone with an iota of common sense should know enough that threats like this will be taken seriously, no matter where or how they are disseminated let alone somewhere as bizarre as an ESPN.com comments section. Thankfully, the folks at ESPN worked quickly to find this guy.

The worst thing about this is that as a father myself, I can't even fathom the thought processes of someone even joking about killing children. With all the horror stories out there that we see on CNN and other news sources on an almost daily basis; its really just heartbreaking and unfortunate no matter when or how it came to be.